New Laptop

My old company laptop finally died.. it was a compaq Evo610c... about 4 years old, maybe 5, I can't remember for sure when I recieved it.. It functioned OK, just OK.. it had a 2.1ghz processor, and 512meg of RAM.. but the Bus speed was probably 256Kb..

My new laptop is like a Laser compared to a bullet.. unbelievably fast.. the old laptop took easliy 10 minutes to fully boot up, it would operate some programs after about 6-8 minutes, but there was a lot of hard-drive activity untill about 10 minutes had passed..

This new 'hot rod' laptop has a 1.8gig Dual Intel Core2 processor, 1 gig of RAM, and the biggie: the bus speed is like 788mghz... what a difference.. Boot-up time is about 2-3 minutes total,, even when I'm looking for a new, previously unused ISP at a hotel.. When I got to my overnight hotel, I used to push the on button, plug in the power 'brick' and cord, go start changing out of my uniform.. I 'd keep and eye on the screen for the security popup to appear. ONce it did appear, usually about 2-3 minutes. I'd enter my passcode, hit enter and finish changing clothes, hanging up my uniform and then sit down to get online,, often the hard drive was still working..

Now I just turn on, take a seat and by the time I've plugged in the power cord and 'brick', not only have I fed it my passcode, but I'm up and online.. absolutely blazing fast.. like the difference between dialup and cable..

NOW, when something isn't happening.. I KNOW it is the internet,, not the turtle under the keyboard.

The new 'puter is a HP/Compaq 6910p, I really am impressed.. now I just hope it holds up well..

Greg L

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Congratulations. Just curious as to what OS is installed on the new company laptop, XP or Vista?

I feel so inadequate sitting here with my Compaq Presario 6000 and my Gateway 2000 monitor from 1994. But hey, I have a wireless keyboard and mouse and I have networked my 2 PC's (which un-networks itself on a regular basis).

Congrats on the new laptop, Greg.

The company uses XP 'enterprise edition'.. we have a working relationship with microsoft, and the FAA.. I have not heard a word about 'Vista'.. since our laptops are part of our required 'flight bag', the FAA has some input into what performance and reliablility is required.. Our laptops contain our full suite of flight manuals, Minimum equipments lists, backup emergency proceedures etc, etc..

It's really a nice setup.. when I get to my Base [for me JFK] I plug in my laptop, and all the latest manual revisions are downloaded and entered in the appropriate manual.. there is a notice with the effective changes for each revision that I read and acknowledge, revision done !!! Only our actual approach plates and arrival and departure charts are still on paper,, we have experimented [Faa observed] with electronic charts, but so far the FAA wants Paper backup.. The airplane's database has it all already,, we just use the paper charts to verify that the loaded arrival/approach/landing is accurate and the same as the paper charts.. This is Standard operations proceedure with all airlines that have electronic flight navigation databases... 99.99% accurate, more accurate than the Human checking their accuracy !!

Greg L

Congrats on the new 'puter! I'm sure it'll sreve you well. It sounds like you need a seatbelt with all that speed!

Vista? I shy away from it. I've seen articles like: "The ten things I changed to make Vista tolerable". And "It bothered me that half my programs didn't work". I don't need those kinds of headaches!.

Vista offers no real advantage if your happy with your setup now, actually disadvantage unless you get a fast machine. I've seen suggestions you need 2GB of ram and software designed for running under Vista. Apparently most business are not taking the plunge but the same thing happened with XP, give it a year or two or wait for next release which should really offer some incentives for upgrades However if you need it you need it. A lot of new software releases are Vista only. Games are going to top the list to take advantage of DX10.